What are some events in history that most people would be surprised happened in parallel or at least within the same time period?
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American Old West: 1803-1912
I had no idea it was that young.
This lead me to this fun fact: The last stage coach robbery was 2 years after WWI began.
Last stage coach robbery was 1916
Also, Titanic had already been sitting at the bottom of the Atlantic for 4 years (1912) when that stage coach was robbed.
If you want to see a great (if also absurdly violent and bloody) Western about the dying days of the wild west, check out Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969). Excellent movie, set in 1913.
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Battle of Little Big Horn was in June, 1876.
The first telephone call was made March 10, 1876.
Man Walked on the Moon in 1969. A few weeks after the Stonewall Riots.
Read about Kitty Hawk in the newspaper at 16 years old, in 1903. Watch men walking on the moon on your TV, at 82 years old.
Fuckin' unreal. Hang out with people who lived through the 20th century, if you ever can, though they are reduced in number now. The perspective they have on things is hard to match. I knew a woman who grew up with black servants in the house who couldn't vote, then marched with MLK, then watched Obama get elected president. And that's everything. Every single aspect of human life, basically, except for a few of the very basics. She was always sort of surprised and amused that I had a "phone" that was a smooth black rectangle that I would control by "stroking" (as she called it) this smooth black surface.
I watched her meet a new person of her generation. First question: Was your husband in the war? Answer was yes. Second question: Did he live? He's not trying to give offense, he just wants to know your situation. He was in the infantry...
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American Old West: 1803-1912
I had no idea it was that young.
This lead me to this fun fact: The last stage coach robbery was 2 years after WWI began.
Last stage coach robbery was 1916
Also, Titanic had already been sitting at the bottom of the Atlantic for 4 years (1912) when that stage coach was robbed.
This was very surprising after having seen a few Western movies from the 1940s. They were already making movies about the period which was in living memory for a lot of people.
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I feel like this is bait for one specific answer... okay, fine, I'll be the one.
MLK Jr, Anne Frank, and Yasser Arafat were all born in the same year (1929). They were all born after Tom Lehrer, who died yesterday, 97 years old.
Edit: Math is hard
Edit: Math is hard
Someone should write a song about that.
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Sharks are about 450-400 million years old. They were around 200 million years before the dinosaurs, and have outlasted them by 65 million years. They're older than the North Star, the rings of Saturn, the Atlantic Ocean, and trees.
And it took 60 million years for the trees to start rotting when they died, because the bacteria to break them down didn't exist. Those trees died, fell over, became peat, and then eventually coal. The trees that were dead and buried trapped carbon dioxide that had been in the atmosphere. 90% of the coal we burn today comes from the period when trees didn't rot, and we're re-releasing all that CO2 back into the atmosphere, from where it's been safely sequestered for 250 million years.
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Read about Kitty Hawk in the newspaper at 16 years old, in 1903. Watch men walking on the moon on your TV, at 82 years old.
Fuckin' unreal. Hang out with people who lived through the 20th century, if you ever can, though they are reduced in number now. The perspective they have on things is hard to match. I knew a woman who grew up with black servants in the house who couldn't vote, then marched with MLK, then watched Obama get elected president. And that's everything. Every single aspect of human life, basically, except for a few of the very basics. She was always sort of surprised and amused that I had a "phone" that was a smooth black rectangle that I would control by "stroking" (as she called it) this smooth black surface.
I watched her meet a new person of her generation. First question: Was your husband in the war? Answer was yes. Second question: Did he live? He's not trying to give offense, he just wants to know your situation. He was in the infantry...
Stroking screens ha ha
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Stroking screens ha ha
I mean it makes perfect sense. From her perspective, I would just pull it out of my pocket and start gently rubbing it carefully with my finger, or prodding softly at it. She just thought it was weird. Why are you doing that? Okay, your device's principles are strange.
She actually never got completely used to "buttons" as she called it, any kind of machine that you had to use a separate control setup for other than just the direct valves or levers involved. Turning the steering wheel makes sense, turning the knobs on the stove makes sense. Any time she put something in the toaster oven, though, with its multiple modes and controls, she would just savagely twist or push any knob she could find until the thing started making heat, and then when she was done, she would remove the object and leave the door open to let the thing gradually figure out things out on its own and shut off. "Life is short, man, don't bother me with your goddamn buttons, I don't care."
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The German ship Blücher was sunk during WW2 by a Whitehead Torpedo.
Buffalo Bill likely passed within a few hundred yards of one such torpedo while visiting Britain.
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Anne Frank and Martin Luther King Jr were born in the same year, which made them 3 years younger than Queen Elizabeth II and Marilyn Monroe
Julius Caesar and Cleopatra died 40-30 years before the birth of Jesus Christ
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There were humans who lived through both the final fall of the (eastern half of) the Roman Empire (May 29, 1453) and the European discovery of the Americas (October 12, 1492). The time between these two critical milestones in European history seems like it should have been much longer than 39 years, 4 months, and 13 days.
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World War 2 happened a few years after after World War 1. If someone didn't already know that it would be pretty surprising I think.
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Sharks are about 450-400 million years old. They were around 200 million years before the dinosaurs, and have outlasted them by 65 million years. They're older than the North Star, the rings of Saturn, the Atlantic Ocean, and trees.
And it took 60 million years for the trees to start rotting when they died, because the bacteria to break them down didn't exist. Those trees died, fell over, became peat, and then eventually coal. The trees that were dead and buried trapped carbon dioxide that had been in the atmosphere. 90% of the coal we burn today comes from the period when trees didn't rot, and we're re-releasing all that CO2 back into the atmosphere, from where it's been safely sequestered for 250 million years.
The Appalachian Mountains began forming approximately 1.5 billion years ago. About the same time that sea animals were first evolving bones. The carbon that became the coal under them was deposited approximately 300 million years ago when they formed the central continental divide of the Pangea supercontinent. That was when they were at their highest, estimated to have been about the same height as the modern Alps.
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Abraham Lincoln could have received a fax from an actual samurai.
All three coexisted at one point in time.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Also, Abraham Lincoln almost joined the Donner Party As he had a job offer in San Francisco
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Picasso passed away in the 2 years time between when Soviet Union and US launched their first space station into space.
This feels surprising mainly because I thought Picasso lived in 1400s. But no he just lived a long life in early 20th century.
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Although they are both stories based on historical events that have been embellished, the Trojan war and the Hebrews leaving Egypt very well could have been happening at the same time (around 1180 BCE)
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World War 2 happened a few years after after World War 1. If someone didn't already know that it would be pretty surprising I think.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]There was also a Persian Empire on the map during World War 1. Qajar Persia specifically.
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Although they are both stories based on historical events that have been embellished, the Trojan war and the Hebrews leaving Egypt very well could have been happening at the same time (around 1180 BCE)
Wasn't the 'exodus' just 5 families or something?
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Wasn't the 'exodus' just 5 families or something?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]As far as I know there is no evidence for a distinct big event, but there were smaller migration movements over a longer time period.
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There were humans who lived through both the final fall of the (eastern half of) the Roman Empire (May 29, 1453) and the European discovery of the Americas (October 12, 1492). The time between these two critical milestones in European history seems like it should have been much longer than 39 years, 4 months, and 13 days.
We were so close to a neo roman Republic but instead we got America. You've ruined my day fuck you
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This was very surprising after having seen a few Western movies from the 1940s. They were already making movies about the period which was in living memory for a lot of people.
Wyatt Earp was an adviser on early silent westerns
